Yes, it's a standard throwaway phrase whose purposes include a) getting people's attention so what follows foes not have to be repeated; and b) communicating an idea politely rather than brusquely.

It's kind of like "May we have your attention please", or "May we suggest". Politeness.

The "ending with an apostrophe" rule only applies for the letter "s" (not z, x, sh, etc.), and only in certain situations: Jesus', Moses' and words in which the possessive "s" is not pronounced (boys', girls').

"Chris's" is pronounced so "Chrisses", it should end with apostrophe-s.

Valdez ends with z, and it's pronounced "Valdezzes" anyway, so it ends with 's.

Whether the final "cz" is pronounced "ch" or "ts", they are both sibilants and thus should be followed by "-es".

meet on Monday
meet Monday

Both of these are acceptable. In the second case, "Monday" is an adverb like "today" or "tomorrow".

On the Web (HTML pages, blog entries, Wikipedia entries, etc.) use only one. Double spaces will end up being single spaces due to the nature of HTML rendering in browsers.

In word processor documents using a variable width font: one. That's standard practice for publishing companies. Two looks awful. Indeed, it was working for a magazine company that broke the two-space habit I learned from my high school typing class.

In text files, e-mail, Usenet, documents with fixed-width fonts, or type-written pages: two is traditional and acceptable. But I now default to one out of habit.

Yup:

four days' journey

Notice the position of the apostrophe.

as wet as your mams clout

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States

I think these folks will always be the first generation, everyone
after are immigrants, unless they were born on this land or from parents who were born here.
Say you and your wife are going to have a bundle of joy soon and low and behold it pops out during a trip to let's say Japan.
This child will still be considered from the parent's homeland.

Yes, thinking about it now, someone a very long time ago,years ago, many,many moons ago should have worded alot of these things or issues or whatever better,
because there is not alot of reasons for arguement except possibly one at the root... Hate

Remember, the trend to eliminate the period (Mr, Ltd, Co, etc) is a British one, but most certainly not an American one. Know your audience.

Also, I think two commas are required here because the "Ltd." is a descriptive word, and the two commas complete the parenthetical.

"on accident" is definitely based on the pattern modeled by "on purpose". In language acquisition, children build upon previously known patterns in creating new phrases,